Inquiry Set 4.3 - How Did the Discovery of Change ? ​

I. Inquiry Set Introduction

Inquiry Set Title How did the discovery of gold change California?

Brief Description The goal of this inquiry set is to give students a comprehensive understanding of the lasting impact that the had on the people living in California, as well as the demographic, economic, and environmental changes that occurred between 1848 and the 1870s.

Authors Shelley Brooks, CHSSP With additional contributions by: John Hogan, Society of California Pioneers Michelle Lorimer, CSU San Bernardino Susan Anderson, California Historical Society

Grade Levels 4

Topics/Concepts Gold Rush, California Indians, Native Californians, African Americans, Chinese immigration, cultural exchange, movement of people, migration, economic growth, environmental impact, Transcontinental Railroad

CA HSS California: A Changing State Standards / Frameworks 4.3 Students explain the economic, social, and political life in California from the establishment of the Bear Flag ​ Republic through the Mexican-American War, the Gold Rush, and the granting of statehood.

4.3.1 Identify the locations of Mexican settlements in California and those of other settlements, including Fort ​ Ross and Sutter's Fort. 4.3.2 Compare how and why people traveled to California and the routes they traveled (e.g., James ​ Beckwourth, John Bidwell, John C. Fremont, Pio Pico).

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4.3.3 Analyze the effects of the Gold Rush on settlements, daily life, politics, and the physical environment ​ (e.g., using biographies of John Sutter, Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, Louise Clapp).

4.3.4 Study the lives of women who helped build early California (e.g., Biddy Mason). ​ 4.3.5 Discuss how California became a state and how its new government differed from those during the ​ Spanish and Mexican periods.

Framework Students study how the discovery of gold and the spread of its news throughout the world affected the multicultural Excerpt aspects of California’s population. Students can compare the long overland route over dangerous terrain to the faster sea route, either via Panama or around Cape Horn. Teachers can read aloud excerpts from Richard Henry Dana, Jr.’s Two Years Before the Mast. The arrivals of Asians, Latin Americans, and Europeans are included as ​ ​ part of this narrative. Students can also explore how the gender imbalance between women and men in California during the gold rush era allowed women who wished to participate in the gold rush to pass as men and led to a number of men to take on women’s roles. To bring this period to life, students can sing the songs and read the literature of the day, including newspapers. They might dramatize a day in the goldfields and compare the life and fortunes of a gold miner with those of traders in the gold towns and merchants in . Students might also read historical fiction, such as Legend of Freedom Hill by Linda Jacobs Altman and By the Great Horn Spoon ​ ​ ​ by Sid Fleischman, which will provide an opportunity to incorporate the CCSS Reading Literature standards and allow students to contrast historical fiction with primary sources, secondary sources, and other informational texts. Students may learn how historical fiction makes the story of history come alive but should learn about the problems of using historical fiction as the sole sources of information about a subject or time period.

Students may also read or listen to primary sources that both illustrate gender and relationship diversity and engage students’ interest in the era, like Bret Harte’s short story of “The Poet of Sierra Flat” (1873) or newspaper articles about the life of the stagecoach driver Charley Parkhurst, who was born as a female but who lived as a male, and who drove stagecoach routes in northern and central California for almost 30 years. Stagecoaches were the only way many people could travel long distances, and they served as a vital communication link between isolated communities. Parkhurst was one of the most famous California drivers, having survived multiple robberies while driving (and later killing a thief when he tried to rob Parkhurst a second time). Students also learn about women who helped to build California during these years, such as Bernarda Ruiz, María Angustias de la Guerra, Louise Clapp, Sarah Royce, and Biddy Mason, as well as the participation of different ethnic groups who came to

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the state during this period, such as those from Asia, Latin America, and Europe, as well the eastern part of the .

Students consider how the Gold Rush changed California by bringing sudden wealth to the state; affecting its population, culture, and politics; and instantly transforming San Francisco from a small village in 1847 to a bustling city in 1849. The social upheaval that resulted from the lure of gold and massive immigration caused numerous conflicts between and among social groups. The camps were one site of conflict, as miners of different ethnicities and races fought for access to wealth. American miners fared best, as California introduced a foreign miners tax on non-Americans. Students can read some of the many stories about the California mining camps and explore the causes and effects of conflict in the camps by expressing their ideas in letters to the editor of an 1850s newspaper, or creating virtual museum exhibits about life in a California mining camp.

Another clear example of conflict during the Gold Rush era and early statehood was the loss of property and autonomy for many of the state’s earlier Mexican and Indian residents. In addition, great violence was perpetrated against many Indian groups who occupied land or resources that new settlers desired. Additional harm came by way of the Indian Indenture Act of 1850, which forced many Indians – mostly Indian youth – into servitude for landowners. The Gold Rush also caused irreparable environmental destruction through the introduction of in the 1850s, which clogged and polluted rivers throughout the state, at great cost to the farmers affected downstream. Examining the development of new methods to extract, harvest, and transport gold during this period allows students to see direct interactions between natural systems and human social systems (California Environmental Principle II), See EEI Curriculum Unit Witnessing the Gold Rush 4.3.3).

Standards California English Language Development Standards for Grade 4

Part I. Interacting in Meaningful Ways

B. Interpretive

6. Reading closely literary and informational texts and viewing multimedia to determine how meaning is conveyed explicitly through language

C. Productive

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10. Writing literary and informational texts to present, describe, and explain ideas and information, using appropriate technology

Common Core State Reading Standards for Literacy in History/Social Studies, Grade 4

Reading Standards for Informational Text Key Ideas and Details

1. Refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.

2. Determine the main idea of a text and explain how it is supported by key details; summarize the text.

Integration of Knowledge and Ideas

7. Interpret information presented visually, orally, or quantitatively (e.g., in charts, graphs, diagrams, time lines, animations, or interactive elements on Web pages) and explain how the information contributes to an understanding of the text in which it appears. 8. Explain how an author uses reasons and evidence to support particular points in a text. 9. Integrate information from two texts on the same topic in order to write or speak about the subject knowledgeably. Writing

2. Write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas and information clearly. a. Introduce a topic clearly and group related information in paragraphs and sections; include formatting (e.g., headings), illustrations, and multimedia when useful to aiding comprehension. b. Develop the topic with facts, definitions, concrete details, quotations, or other information and examples related to the topic. c. Link ideas within categories of information using words and phrases (e.g., another, for example, also, because). d. Use precise language and domain-specific vocabulary to inform about or explain the topic.

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Investigative How did the discovery of gold change California? Question

Historical The California Gold Rush was a defining, disruptive event that changed the state in ways that are still evident Background today. The goal of this inquiry set is to give students a more complete understanding of the lasting impact that the California Gold Rush had on the people living in California as well as the demographic, economic, and environmental changes that occurred between 1848 and the 1870s.

Although the California Gold Rush was the largest westward migration in our country’s history, gold seekers came from every direction. Thousands of hopeful immigrants came from Asia, Central and South America, the Pacific Islands, Australia, and Europe. People from these diverse cultures clashed with one another, as well as with the indigenous people, the Californios, the US military, and Spanish, Russian, and Mexican traders who were all established in the region before 1849. As California’s population diversified and expanded exponentially, resources grew scarce. Violent conflicts between cultures erupted in mining camps and on city streets. Laws that codified racial discrimination and inequitable taxation were among the first enacted when California became the thirty-first state on September 9, 1850.

Many American migrants who moved to California viewed this new US possession as the sole property of people from the United States, considering all other people “foreigners.” This group of “foreigners” included people to whom the US government had technically offered citizenship rights under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848), such as Native Californians and pre-Gold Rush residents of Mexican California.

Americans viewed Native people as barriers to settlement in California, and many used violence to remove Native people from desirable land. The intentional violence against Native Californians was so extreme that it constituted a genocide. Officials at local, state, and federal levels financially supported the genocide of California Indian peoples. State and local laws further facilitated the attempted extermination of Native Californian communities and cultures from 1850 to the 1870s. American militiamen, groups of self-described Indian hunters, land-hungry ranchers, and other individuals worked together to commit acts of violence, wiping out entire Native communities during this period. The impact of violence, disease, and environmental changes on indigenous people was so extreme that the population of Native Californians declined from approximately 150,000 in 1848 to less than 17,000 people by 1900.

Many rushed in. Very few found gold, but the California Gold Rush brought unprecedented economic growth nonetheless. Entrepreneurial immigrants capitalized on the needs of the state’s booming population. There was

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money to be made in farming and ranching, in manufacturing and building infrastructure, in banking and real estate, and in catering to a new, wealthy merchant class. In San Francisco, the state’s first truly metropolitan city, the divide between the haves and the have-nots became both evident and undeniable. Still, the overall strength of California’s economy and its abundant natural resources were the impetus for building the Transcontinental Railroad, which allowed California businesses to enter a market relationship with the rest of the country and, in turn, created the state’s first millionaires.

Mining degrades both the land and its waterways. In addition to clear-cutting areas to build campsites, miners diverted streams and rivers, damaging the fragile ecosystems that supported California native plants and animals. Some introduced toxic into the water system (because it adheres to gold, making it easier to locate in moving water). Unencumbered by any form of government regulation or oversight, large mining companies cleared hillsides and leveled mountains when they introduced hydraulic mining, a system of strip mining that erodes the landscape and clogs rivers with sludge and debris. The environmental toll of the California Gold Rush was dire and far reaching.

The primary sources selected for this inquiry set include photographs, prints, a manuscript, and a map to illustrate how the Gold Rush changed the state in fundamental ways. Together these sources encourage deeper inquiry and conversation about issues of race, class, and conflict during prosperous times and the value of our natural resources, as well as how a single event can alter the course of history.

Potential Genocide of Native Californians: Sensitive Issues, Many scholars have illustrated that the extreme violence against Native Californians from 1850 to the 1870s, in Topics, and conjunction with policies to remove Native children from their families and forced assimilation efforts, constituted a Information genocide according to the definition of genocide established by the United Nations Genocide Convention in 1948.

Suggestions for teaching genocide: 1. Explain the precursors to the genocide such as the dehumanization of Native people in American society, framing Native people as barriers to development, removal of people from tribal homelands, and the long-term history of forced assimilation. 2. Frame the genocide within the context of the historical period. 3. Focus on the human aspect of the genocide. Use first-hand accounts from survivors, victims, perpetrators, and bystanders when possible. 4. Encourage critical analysis of newspaper articles and other historical sources that provide insight into

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events. Encourage students to consider the bias in these sources. Do they tell the full story? What perspective is left out? How can we find a more clear understanding of events? The book Exterminate ​ Them!, edited by Cliff Trafzer and Joel Hyer, includes many primary source excerpts from newspapers that ​ ​ ​ would be useful for this activity. 5. Try to name perpetrators and survivors; do not use phrases that generalize actions or experiences of entire groups, such as “all people thought/did/felt…”. 6. Do not create activities that use hypothetical situations in which the genocide did not happen. Similarly, do not talk about the inevitability of the genocide. Base your discussions on concrete evidence. Provide students with primary sources, such as Source 11, and guide them through inquiry processes about how and why these acts of genocide occurred.

Map San Francisco; Timbuctoo, Yuba County; Placer County; Coloma

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II. Source Sets

#1 Primary Yerba Buena in the spring of 1837 Source

Title of Source Yerba Buena in the spring of 1837

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Holding Institution California Historical Society

For the Student This drawing shows Yerba Buena (now called San Francisco) in the year 1837, 11 years before the discovery of gold in California. How would you describe Yerba Buena? What do you think the ships were doing here?

For the Teacher California was a province of Mexico during this period. Mexico, unlike Spain, allowed California to trade with other countries. During the 1830s, some of the people who arrived to trade with California came from the eastern United States. California in these years had ample cattle hides from its ranches, which ranchers sold to easterners who needed the hides to make into leather shoes and belts in the factories of the American Northeast.

#2 Primary San Francisco panorama, spring 1851 Source

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Title of Source San Francisco panorama, spring 1851

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Holding Institution California Historical Society

Link to Record http://digitallibrary.californiahistoricalsociety.org/object/4429?solr_nav%5Bid%5 D=809605806a3c52f765fe&solr_nav%5Bpage%5D=0&solr_nav%5Boffset%5D =19

For the Student The discovery of gold in 1848 attracted hundreds of thousands of hopeful miners to California. With this rapid increase in new residents, land that had never before contained buildings quickly turned into towns. Many people made a living in California from jobs other than mining. They earned money by owning or running stores where miners could buy supplies and clothes, as cooks and servers in restaurants, by doing miners’ laundry, or by cutting miners’ hair and beards. How does this photo compare to the drawing in Source 1?

For the Teacher This 1851 photograph gives an idea of just how quickly the area of Yerba Buena became a city. It shows the neighborhood south of what is now San Francisco’s Market Street. The wooden homes and buildings were erected in haste and without much embellishment. These wooden homes were very susceptible to burning from the fires that swept through the city at various times in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

#3 Primary Grand Admission celebration, Portsmouth Square, San Francisco, Oct. 29th, 1850 Source

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Title of Source Grand admission celebration. Portsmouth Square, Octr. 29th 1850

Holding Institution California Historical Society

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Link to Record https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8rx9dfv/ ​

For the Student Shortly after gold seekers flooded into the region, leaders gathered to write a state constitution in 1849. The United States admitted California as the thirty-first state in September 1850. California was able to skip the official territory status because over 200,000 people moved to the area during the first two years of the Gold Rush. When a territory became a state, it had more say in its own governance and could send senators and representatives to Washington, DC, to help shape regional and national laws.

What types of issues do you think were the most important to the people who wrote the laws and created the first state government in California? Do you think other states in the American West developed as quickly as California? Why or why not?

For the Teacher In order for a territory to become a state it had to have a minimum of 60,000 residents, and a delegation of people had to apply to Congress for statehood status. Congress granted statehood to California on September 9, 1850. To give a sense of how quickly California was able to become a state because of the Gold Rush, we can compare it to other territories brought into the Union following the Mexican–American War. Arizona and New Mexico, like ​ ​ California, were states that the United States purchased from Mexico after the war. Arizona and New Mexico did not have a gold rush, large areas of fertile farmland that appealed to American migrants, or other dramatic economic events, and these territories did not become states until 1912. Similarly, many American farming families were attracted to Oregon, which was organized into an official territory in 1848, but people in the region did not vote for statehood until 1857.

#4 Primary Portrait of a Chinese Man, circa 1853 Source

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Title of Source Untitled (Portrait of a Chinese Man)

Creator Isaac Wallace Baker

Holding Institution Oakland Museum of California

Link to Record http://collections.museumca.org/?q=collection-item/a68941

For the Student The Gold Rush brought people from across the United States and around the world to California. This diverse group of newcomers met and interacted with each other, with Native people, and with the Californios already living in California. Because California was a US possession when the Gold Rush began, many American miners believed the gold should be for American citizens only. Racist views led to discrimination and violence during the Gold Rush. Once California became a state in 1850, state and local governments created laws to make it more difficult for non-US citizens to mine for gold. Many European American miners and leaders also believed that nonwhite people did not belong in the gold fields. Leaders in California created foreign miners’ tax laws in 1850 and 1852 that made it difficult for Hispanic and Chinese miners to be successful. Officials working for the City of San Francisco passed several ordinances that tried to stop Chinese people from owning laundries and renting rooms as well as laws that tried to force them to cut their hair.

Why do you think competition made Americans want to exclude people who were different from them? In what ways were various groups of people in California different? What did they have in common?

For the Teacher During the Gold Rush, California quickly became a place where people competed to own the best land and resources to make the most money. The state legislature instituted a tax that all non-US citizens had to pay in order to keep mining for gold. Some miners became discouraged and left California. Others, most notably Chinese miners, paid the tax and continued to work the gold fields. It was common for Chinese miners to work areas that had already been abandoned by American miners. In this way, the Chinese were less likely to become the targets of violence perpetrated by American miners who wanted exclusive rights to the gold. This also pushed Chinese people out of the mines and into towns where they worked as cooks and created laundry businesses to wash the clothes of other miners. However, Chinese people continued to experience violence and extreme discrimination. Accounts in

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newspapers reported that American miners attacked Chinese people and cut off men’s long “queue” ponytail. The “queue” is the hairstyle worn by the man in this image.

#5 Primary Hydraulic Mining, Timbuctoo Diggings, Yuba County, 1865 Source

Title of Source No. 798: Hydraulic Mining, Timbuctoo Diggings, Yuba County.

Date 1865

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Holding Institution California Historical Society

Link to Record https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8mg7w44/

For the Student Panning for gold or was replaced by a newer technology called hydraulic mining. As this image shows, it required a good deal of water, which came from mountain streams and rivers. The Gold Rush had an enormous impact on this land and water. Hydraulic mining companies created dams to pool the water from a river so that it could be used to spray the mountainsides to reveal the gold beneath. In order to capture the small flakes of gold, miners poured mercury into the mix to attach to the gold, thereby making it easy to pick out the larger clumps. Mercury is a toxic substance, which was dangerous for the miners who handled it and unhealthy for the fish and other creatures that lived in the rivers. This mercury is still present in most California rivers today.

What do you imagine this mountain area looked like before hydraulic mining? What do you think happened to the plants and animals living here once mining began?

For the Teacher This is an image of what was once one of the wealthiest sources of gold in California. The town of Timbuctoo in Yuba County was built along the Yuba River, where sandbars on its shores and deposits in nearby mountains yielded abundant gold. Yuba County was also home to at least two gold mining operations owned by African Americans, the Sweet Vengeance Mine and the Rare and Ripe Gold and Silver Mine. Historians give the account that the town’s name of Timbuctoo was selected when white miners arrived to find an African American miner with “a golden smile” panning for gold at the river. Timbuktu, as it is properly known, was a legendary ancient city of learning and riches in Mali, West Africa. Hydraulic mining is a clear example of the cause and effect cycle that people and their environments often experience. Students may benefit from making a chart that explains each action by miners and the immediate effect (either listed above or deduced) on the local land, water, and people.

#6 Primary A letter from E.A. Stevenson, Special Indian Agent to Hon. Thomas J. Henley, superintendent of Source Indian Affairs, San Francisco, 1853

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“The Indians in this portion of the State[El Dorado County] are wretchedly poor, having no horses, cattle or other property. They formerly subsisted on game, fish, acorns, etc., but it is now impossible for them to make a living by hunting or fishing, for nearly all the game has been driven from the mining region or has been killed [by miners]. The rivers…formerly were clear as crystal and abounded with the finest salmon…I [used to see] the Indians taking barrels of these beautiful fish and drying them for the winter. But the miners have turned the streams from their beds and [made them] so thick with mud.”

Title of Source A letter from E.A. Stevenson, Special Indian Agent to Hon. Thomas J. Henley, superintendent of Indian Affairs, San Francisco (1853)

Holding Institution California Historical Society

Preferred Citation Stevenson, E.A. "A letter from E.A. Stevenson, Special Indian Agent to Hon. Thomas J. Henley, superintendent of Indian Affairs, San Francisco, 1853." In The Destruction ​ of the California Indians, Edited by Robert Heizer, 15-16. Lincoln: University of ​ ​ ​ Nebraska Press, 1993.

For the Student As this text shows, mining operations had devastating impacts on communities of California Indians who lived in the mountains and downstream in the foothills and valleys below. Not only did the miners and their equipment crowd out Native people, but the mining itself also caused drastic changes to the environment that made it difficult for Native communities to access the food that they needed to live.

Consider the following questions: How did mining affect Native people’s food supplies? What do you think Native people did to solve this problem? How can we find the answers to these questions?

Thinking about the author: What are the views of the author of this source? Does the author seem to understand the lifeways of Native people before the Gold Rush? How does the author describe Native people’s lifeways? Does he think Native people and Americans are equal? Why or why not?

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For the Teacher As a result of miners’ violence against Native Californians, as well as drastic environmental change, tens of thousands of Native people died during the Gold Rush. Mining activities fouled Native people’s water supplies, destroyed fish populations, and drove off wild animals, and the land disruption destroyed Native people’s food supplies. All of this change led to malnutrition and starvation. It also made Native people desperate to find new foods. Some desperate Native people would take cattle and horses that belonged to miners and ranchers. This led to disproportionately violent responses wherein miners burned down Native villages and massacred entire groups of people who may or may not have taken the livestock.

Before sustained European contact began in California in the late 1700s, scholars estimate that the Native population was approximately 310,000 people. By the time the Gold Rush began, there were only an estimated 150,000 Native people living in California. This decline accounted for an approximately 50 percent loss of population from the beginning of contact with Europeans. By 1900, the total indigenous population in California was less than 17,000 people. While much of the population decline from the 1770s to the 1830s resulted primarily from disease, most of the death during the Gold Rush was due to violent acts.

Consider talking with students about the impacts that miners had on the land, and on the lives of Native Californians.

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#7 Primary Train in Dixie Cut, Gold Run Station, Placer County, circa 1865-1867 Source

Title of Source Train in Dixie Cut. Gold Run Station, Placer County.

Holding Institution California Historical Society

Link to Record https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt3p3017kz/ ​

For the Student The Gold Rush was the main industry that led to the creation of many other economic activities in California. Miners built homes, stores, tools, and more, all of which required wood. The timber industry started in California during the Gold Rush. Soon, California’s forests were being logged to create lumber for new construction. Miners also needed food, which helped start the citrus industry and many farms. Because California’s economy was growing so rapidly,

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the US Congress decided to build a railroad across the country to reach this newly important state. What might a railroad line do to the land? What sort of new economic opportunities might a railroad reaching to the eastern United States bring to California?

For the Teacher In 1862, construction began on the Transcontinental Railroad. It took an enormous amount of natural resources to build, and many forests on the train’s path were logged for railroad ties and snowsheds in the mountains. These had to be repaired regularly with fresh lumber. Chinese immigrants were crucial to the building of the line. The Transcontinental Railroad was completed in 1869 and soon encouraged expansion lines throughout the state to areas where more forests could be logged for valuable building materials, agricultural products could be moved to market, and cities such as Los Angeles beckoned to Americans looking to find work and a new home in California.

#8 Primary Map of the Gold Regions of California, 1849 Source

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Title of Source Map of the Gold Regions of California: showing the routes via Chagres and Panama, Cape Horn, &c.

Holding Society of California Pioneers Institution

For the Student Printed and sold in New York in 1849, this map features a shortcut that promised to get hopeful gold seekers to “Upper or New California” before too many others arrived. The guide at the bottom of the map offers helpful advice on how much to pack for the journey and where to anchor a boat in San Francisco Bay, as well as warnings about what you might encounter in the gold fields — including lots of rain and grizzly bears. Compare this map to any ​ ​ modern one to see how the size and shape of California changed over time.

For the Teacher Mention the California Gold Rush and most people picture weary pioneer families trekking overland in covered wagons. Although that is certainly an important part of the story, thousands of gold seekers and other early immigrants came by ship. For those who could afford it, passage by sea offered a certain level of relative comfort. Those sailing to California from New York, Boston, or Europe could considerably shorten their time at sea by crossing over the Isthmus of Panama (on foot, on mules, or later by train) to avoid circumnavigating South America; this map documents their options and outlines the risks involved.

Teachers can use this source to introduce other key concepts: how information and misinformation about the discovery of gold and about life in California spread across the country and around the world; how fortunes were made in transporting hopeful immigrants; and how maps are unique, important primary sources of information about the diverse experiences of those who came before us.

#9 Primary 9a. Andrew and Sarah Monroe and family, seated portrait, 1890 Source

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9b. Andrew and Sarah Monroe and family

For the Student These images portray Andrew and Sara Monroe and their children on the same day in 1890. The Monroes were one of the prominent African American families in Coloma, El Dorado County, where gold was discovered. The area included many other African American families, such as the Johnson, Burgess, Wilson, and Smallwood families, who contributed to building a local African Methodist Episcopal Church, attended the area schools, and operated businesses in town and farms along the outskirts. Because it was the site where gold was originally found, Coloma

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became a crowded area; in addition to the many African American families, campsites were established nearby where miners dug for gold.

Andrew Monroe’s parents were Nancy and Peter Gooch, formerly enslaved people who were brought to California during the Gold Rush by their former owner. Andrew built on the hard work of his parents and acquired property in the area, including the land on which Sutter’s Mill had been located. By the 1920s, the Monroe family owned 320 acres in Coloma, much of which were fruit orchards and forests of fir pines sold as Christmas trees, along with the land where the Monroes built the town’s blacksmith shop, school house, and the Monroe family home. This land is now part of Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park.

For the Teacher Those who flocked to the Mother Lode included African Americans. Some were enslaved people, forced to travel to California, but the majority of black migrants were free people who paid their own passage overland or by ship from states such as Pennsylvania, New York, and Massachusetts. Contemporaneous accounts describe 300 African American miners at the site known as Negro Hill, near Coloma. Mining areas around El Dorado County first staked ​ by African Americans were known as Negro Hill, Little Negro Hill, Negro Run, and Big Negro Hill. The original “nigger” in these place names was changed in the twentieth century by government mapmakers. Many of these campgrounds and diggings were also populated by hundreds of Chinese, Europeans, and anti-slavery whites from the northern United States.

The Monroe family was like most other families in the area: they didn’t mine for gold, they homesteaded. Despite prohibitive laws and discrimination, African Americans made the most of the liberties at their disposal. By 1855, African Americans from around the state had organized the first Convention of Colored Citizens of California, part of a national Colored Convention movement to advocate for the abolition of slavery and for equal rights in their states. El Dorado County sent its share of delegates to the convention. During the first Colored Convention, the report on the statistics of the “colored” population and their wealth reveals that the 1,000 African American residents of El Dorado County were second in wealth only to the 1,500 African Americans who lived in San Francisco.

#10 Primary 10a. Alvin Aaron Coffey, undated ​ Source

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10b. Manumission deed of Alvin Aaron Coffey, July 24, 1856

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Full transcript (only one page of letter shown above):

Saint Louis Co SS. Missouri July 24, 1856 I the undersigned in the presence of these witnesses this day and year above written does liberate, emancipate, discharge and set free for his good behaviour good conduct and other good traits in his character too numerous to mention, Alvin A Coffey. The said Alvin A Coffey was born the property of Margret Cook of Mason County Kentucky, July 14th 1822, .he was brot [sic] to Missouri by Henry H Duval in 1834 and then sold to Dr William Bassett in 1846, then sold to the undersigned in 1852, said Alvin A Coffey. Is a bright mulatto with gray eyes and bushy hair heavy set weighing about 180 pounds. About five feet ten inches high. Scar on his left cheek. In the Presence of Almighty God, and of these witnesses, this day and year above written, I herewith affix my hand and seal to liberate, Emancipate, discharge, and set free, the said Alvin A Coffey, for the valid consideration of one thousand dollars the receipt whereoff is hereby acknowledged in full. attest A.B. Barbee M.D. Mary Tindale ? Nathan Reynolds Nelson Tindale

Title of Source 10a. Alvin Aaron Coffey 10b. Manumission deed of Alvin Aaron Coffey

Holding Institution Society of California Pioneers

For the Student This is a portrait of Alvin Coffey, who arrived in California the first time in 1849. The photograph was taken in a studio in the 1880s and shows him wearing a medal indicating he was an original — and the first African American — ​ ​ ​ member of the Society of California Pioneers. The handwritten texts seen here are his manumission papers, stating that he is no longer “owned” by the man who signed the document. As an enslaved person, Coffey made the grueling journey back and forth from California to Missouri, his home state, three times to earn the money to buy his own freedom and the freedom of his wife and children. He worked in the gold mines, he worked on farms baling hay, and at night he repaired shoes. Once freed, the family settled in Red Bluff in Tehama County, where Coffey made a

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living as a turkey farmer on the 240 acres he owned. He was a well-known leader and was said to have prospered and acquired a small fortune.

California state law prevented African American children from attending public schools, but black families were eager for education, so Coffey and his neighbors, like other African Americans around the state, organized a “colored school.” African American residents of Red Bluff paid the teacher and bought subscriptions to finance the school, all the while paying taxes for public schools that excluded them. When Coffey and his family first arrived in California together in 1857, he and wife, Mahala, hosted a school in their home for African American and American Indian children, who were also prohibited from attending public schools,. The Coffeys’ last and eighth child, a girl, was born in 1862; acknowledging the role that gold played in transforming their lives, the Coffeys named her Ora Fina, which means “the finest gold.”

For the Teacher Most African Americans who came to California during the Gold Rush were free and traveled from free states such as New York, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts. Alvin Coffey was among the minority of African Americans who arrived as enslaved persons. On his first trip, Coffey drove a team of oxen on a wagon train, and he tended to the oxen and other animals and travelers during the six-month ordeal that was the journey from Missouri to California. The white man who owned him promised Coffey his freedom if Coffey worked dry-digging gold in California, but the owner stole Coffey’s gold dust and forced Coffey to return to Missouri, threatening on their way back to sell him at the notorious slave market in New Orleans. Coffey persisted, persuading a new owner to allow him to return to California and earn money for his and his family’s manumission.

Alvin Coffey is an example of the Gold Rush African Americans for whom California meant riches and rights, and who emerged as civic leaders in the new state, helping to change the laws and practices that were meant to limit their participation. Because of his membership in the Society of California Pioneers, an interview with Coffey was recorded by hand, and his rare first-person testimony is available today.

#11 Primary Genocide Against California Indians: Gov. Peter Burnett, Annual Address to California Legislature Source (1851)

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Transcript:

"Like the people of all thinly populated but fertile countries, who are enabled to supply the simplest wants of Nature from the spontaneous productions of the earth, [Native Californians] are, from habit and prejudice, exceedingly adverse to manual labor.... The white man, to whom time is money, and who labors hard all day to create the comforts of life, cannot sit up all night to watch his property; and after being robbed a few times, he becomes desperate, and resolves upon a war of extermination. This is the common feeling of our people who have lived upon the Indian frontier. The two races are kept asunder by so many causes... they must ever remain at enmity.

That a war of extermination will continue to be waged between the races until the Indian race becomes extinct must be expected. While we cannot anticipate this result but with painful regret, the inevitable destiny of the race is beyond the power or wisdom of man to avert."

Title of Source Gov. Peter Burnett, Excerpt from Annual Address to California Legislature, January 7, 1851

Holding Institution California Digital Newspaper Collection

Link to Record https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=ST18510110.2.4&e=------185-en--20--1-byDA-txt-txIN------1

For the Student Native Californian people who lived in were some of the first people to mine for gold when the Gold Rush began. Some worked for themselves, and many others worked in groups for Mexican Californian ranchers (called Californios). In the months after the Gold Rush began in the winter of 1848, tens of thousands of people from around the world arrived in California. This sudden population growth caused a lot of tension between the newcomers, Native people, and many Spanish-speaking residents of California. Americans and others from Central and South America brought many animals with them that ate Native people’s food and destroyed their water supplies with their waste. Native people responded to these newcomers in many ways. Native people traded and worked with the newcomers, they moved away from them, and sometimes Native people stole from them or fought with them. Newcomers to California also responded to Native people in a variety of ways. Some tried to help Native

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people, while many others used violence, intimidation, and local laws to push Native peoples out of the mines and off of valuable farmland.

At the same time, other groups of Americans wanted to stop this violence. They argued that the government should remove Native people from lands that Americans wanted. These people, called “reformers,” wanted to put Native people on reservations where government officials could protect Native people and change them through school, work, and church programs.

The quote by California’s first governor, Peter Burnett, describes some of the tensions between Native people and Americans who moved to California during the Gold Rush. Governor Burnett had a simple and negative view of Native people. He did not seem to understand their cultures and the many reasons for their actions.

What are some of Burnett’s complaints about Native people? Using Source 6, describe the impacts that Americans had on Native people. How might the changes that Americans brought to Native peoples’ land have affected the relationship between Americans and Native Californians that Burnett described?

For the Teacher Indigenous people were some of the first to mine for gold in the early years of the Gold Rush. Some of the richest land, called the motherlode, was on the tribal homelands of Native people in and around the . Many European Americans, who were unhappy about the presence of Native people and other “foreigners” from Latin America, used violence and intimidation and created discriminatory laws to push unwanted people out of the mines. When violence and intimidation did not work to push out unwanted people, some of the most brutal new migrants to California engaged in extermination campaigns to remove Native peoples such as the Hupa, Yuki, and Miwok from their land — viciously massacring and enslaving countless indigenous men, women, and children. Some local governments paid these militiamen for the heads and scalps of Native people. It is well documented that both the California and US governments reimbursed local militias for their expenses during expeditions to kill Native Californian people. These financial incentives encouraged continued violence against Native Californians.

The California legislature also passed the Act for the Government and Protection of Indians (1850). This law allowed Americans to exploit Native people as indentured laborers, hidden under the guise of vagrancy laws and apprenticeship programs. Included in this law was a provision that allowed Americans to petition the state government for custodianship of Native children who would become their “wards” and work as indentured servants for private individuals until they reached adulthood. Likewise, vagrancy regulations created a system wherein local authorities could arrest and fine Native people deemed “vagrants,” specifically stating that “[a]ny Indian able to work

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and support himself in some honest calling, not having wherewithal to maintain himself, who shall be found loitering and strolling about, or frequenting public places where liquors are sold, begging, or leading an immoral or profligate course of life, shall be liable to be arrested on the complaint of any resident citizen of the county.”

Many people in California in the 1850s either sought to exterminate Native peoples or exploited them for their labor. However, some people pushed back against this violence. Religious groups, activists, and reformers argued that the violence was immoral. Instead, they proposed to create reservations where the government could protect Native people and assimilate them into an American way of life. Either way, many Americans in the mid- to late 1800s began to conclude that Native cultures would become extinct, but they disagreed about the continued survival of Native people themselves.

With this evidence, many scholars have argued that the intentional violence against Native people during the Gold Rush constituted a genocide. The UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide defines genocide as “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”

Using Governor Peter Burnett’s quote, the UN definition of genocide, and related background information provided in this section, encourage students to consider the deliberate nature of the attacks against Native Californians. Encourage them to think about the events that led to the violence and the responses of people in the area. Consider the other ways that officials in California facilitated the destruction/genocide of Native Californian communities through the combined efforts of “apprenticeship” programs that removed Native children from their families and placed them with white families, the physical removal of communities from their tribal homelands, the destruction of Native food supplies (described in Source 6), and forced assimilation campaigns to eradicate Native cultures.

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#12 Primary Genocide Against California Indians: Native people in the Yosemite Valley and On the Merced, circa Source 1924

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Title of Source On the Merced--Southern Miwok

Creator Edward S. Curtis

Holding Library of Congress Institution

Link to Record http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/98502529/

For the Student The area around the Merced River is home to the Southern Sierra Miwok, the Northern Yokut, and Paiute peoples. The people living along the eastern Sierra and into the Yosemite Valley harvested acorns as an important source of food that could be stored year round. They also had a variety of other plants and animals available in the mountains, foothills, and plains that surrounded their land. They hunted deer and rabbits, prong-horned antelope, and elk, and some groups sent hunting parties after grizzly bears and black bears. The warm furs from some of these animals provided important clothing during the cold winters in the Yosemite Valley. People also fished and caught many different types of birds for food. From the 1850s to the 1880s, many thousands of newcomers moved onto Miwok, Yokut, and Paiute peoples’ lands as well as the lands of dozens of other Native communities in Northern California, including the Pomo, Wintu, Tolowa, Maidu, Hupa, and many others. These newcomers hunted the same animals that Native people hunted, they ate some of the same plants, and they brought animals that ate the grasses and seeds that Native people used in their daily lives. Many Native communities struggled to survive during this time. Some groups were completely wiped out, while others found ways to survive in the changing world.

The image included in this source is a photograph of a Southern Miwok man fishing in the 1920s. What does this image tell you about the impact of foreigners on Southern Miwok people? How do you think Native people felt about the changes that newcomers brought to their lives?

For the Teacher The region around the Merced River in north-central California is home to the Southern Sierra Miwok, Northern Valley Yokut, and Paiute peoples. These people and those from many hundreds of other Native communities across California felt the strain of migrants from the United States, Central America, South America, Europe, Asia, Australia,

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and the Pacific Islands. From the southeast desert, the Quechan encountered American gold seekers and US military personnel at the crossing of the Colorado River at Yuma; and in the far northern regions of California, Modoc and Klamath communities felt the presence of travelers who were making the trek south from Oregon into the California gold fields. People from around the world arrived in California by the thousands on overland routes and by sea in 1849. Before the Gold Rush, Native people made up the vast majority of the population in the region, but newcomers quickly became the dominant population within the span of a single year.

This enormous shift impacted Native people in devastating ways. Some Chimariko and Yahi communities did not survive the violence and environmental changes brought by outsiders. Other Native communities such as the Modoc found ways to resist foreigners for a time, but US military actions against the Modoc led to their eventual removal to a reservation. Many other Native people worked within the new structures established by the developing American California government to try to survive the changes as best as possible. Some Native people decided to hide their identities. They pretended to be Mexican and kept their cultures, languages, and Native heritages secret to protect themselves and their families from the discrimination and violence that some Americans directed toward Native people.

Because of the dramatic population decline that resulted from the genocide of California Indians, many Americans began to mistakenly believe that Native Californian people were unable to survive in a more modern world. Anthropologists, photographers, museum collectors, and writers worked to document Native people and their cultures before they would supposedly “vanish.” Scholars amassed vast amounts of data about the lifeways, customs, religions, histories, and languages of Native people across the state. Museum collectors and amateur anthropologists collected baskets, cradleboards, instruments, clothing, pottery, sacred objects, and even the human remains of Native people to “save” for future generations. At the same time, photographers took countless photographs of Native people and their cultural objects. Some of these pictures were candid representations of actual life, but many others were staged by photographers. The image in this source was taken by Edward Curtis who frequently staged images of Native people.

Encourage students to think about the changes that newcomers forced on Native Californian people. How did these changes create the notion of “vanishing” Indians? How is this image an example of Native peoples’ continued survival into the 1920s?

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III. English Language Development extension activity

To help students understand both E.A. Stevenson’s argument in his letter to the superintendent of Indian Affairs (Source 6) and the strategy he employed to persuade the reader, teachers can guide students to analyze his writing by asking them to consider his word choice, differentiating between current and past tense and speculating as to Stevenson’s intent and effectiveness, as detailed in Student Handout 1.

Teachers should note that Stevenson utilizes a before/after paradigm in order to make an argument about the impact of the Gold Rush on the well-being of the Native population in El Dorado County. He does this by contrasting the conditions before the Gold Rush (signaled by the markers “formerly” and the use of past tense) with current conditions in 1853, described using the present tense. Although he doesn’t use explicit cause and effect language (such as, “because” or “as a result of”), his use of this past/present rhetorical stance is an effective method intended to persuade the reader of the causal links between the Gold Rush, environmental conditions, and the health of Native society.

Additional instructions are provided in Student Handout 1.

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